“A lot nicer than the school I’m at now,” I said.

  I guess that wasn’t entirely true. I did have Xandra. And Gregory and Laura weren’t so bad.

  But it wasn’t the same. My life here in New York had been vampire-free. I had known safety.

  These vampires had literally ruined my new life in Florida. If Byron had just left me alone, I wouldn’t be involved in any of this. They wouldn’t care about me, and I’d be blissfully unaware that they existed. Not riding in a car with two vampires rustling in the trunk behind me, occasionally cursing quietly through the leather seats. Yet because of Byron’s sick interest in me, the vampire world had bled, not just into my new life, but into my old life too, tainting the perfect world of my past.

  The injustice of it all disgusted me.

  I wished I’d been able to make him suffer more before he died.

  Even then, I doubted it would be enough.

  “What is the address of your house, Miss Cassandra?” Lockwood asked. I’d spitballed the use of it as a base of operations as I devoured cheesy puffs—and, like Lockwood said, Mill and Iona found themselves in a rare agreement that it was worth utilizing.

  “It’s just up this road,” I said, wincing as I stretched my back muscles and tried to relax.

  I peered out of the windshield at the road that I had spent most of my life on. There were no cars, as usual, and the blacktop was littered with all the same pot holes I’d ever known.

  “Take a left here,” I said.

  Lockwood complied.

  And there it was. Even though I had seen it thousands of times, it still felt surreal to see it for the first time in almost four months.

  A two-story white house with blue shutters, a large front porch, and a two-car garage. There were windows along every side, and a huge backyard with a swing hanging from an oak tree with thick, stretching branches.

  Lockwood’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Would you like a minute?”

  “Yeah …” I said, and I stepped out of the car.

  The smell of farmland filled the air, along with the rich, earthy smell of the forest around the house. Wind rushed through the dense, tall branches, a sound more pleasing to me than wind chimes or seagulls on the beach.

  The sun was not as bright here, either. The sunlight that danced through the dense trees was softer, more comforting. Leaves were still popping out on the branches, returning after a long winter’s absence.

  And the grass! The grass was a dark, rich green, almost blue. Soft to the touch. I had grown so used to the spiny yellow-green grass that hurt to walk on in Florida. How had I forgotten this color?

  I grabbed my keys from my pocket and stepped up onto the front porch.

  I’d be able to do this with my eyes closed. I’d even miss the squeaky board on the porch three steps before the door.

  I slid the key home in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open.

  Silence.

  This house had never been so quiet, so … lonely. There probably hadn’t been anyone here since we’d left. Once my parents had decided to move, they’d wanted to be gone as soon as possible. So, deciding against waiting months for the house to sell, they’d just made it available as a rental. No one had taken that offer yet, either—something my mother liked to frequently remind me about.

  That we didn’t live here anymore because of me.

  The sun behind me bathed the foyer’s hardwood floor in watery light as I stepped inside. A thin layer of dust covered the small table beside the door where we all used to toss our keys when we got home. Mom hated it; called it a crap collector.

  The stairs leading up were directly in front of me, but I stepped through to the living room just off the foyer.

  It was eerie. It almost felt as if someone had passed away. Everything was so still. And the house didn’t smell right. It was musty and smelled like furniture polish. It used to smell like Mom’s favorite cinnamon candles and Dad’s chocolate chip cookies.

  I could see Dad sitting on our couch rooting for the Buffalo Bills every Sunday during football season, reassuring me every season that they would make their comeback the next year. It used to be my favorite way of avoiding my homework on Sunday afternoons.

  I wandered through the living room into the small kitchen. I knew that Mom and Dad liked how large the kitchen was in Florida, but this had worked. The large window over the sink looked out into the backyard and surrounding forest. There wasn’t an island, but Mom had picked out the bluish granite countertops herself after months of searching.

  Dad had baked so many Thanksgiving turkeys in this kitchen. The small dent in the oven door where he had tripped trying to pull three pies out of the oven was still there. There was a distinct coffee ring on the corner of the sink where Mom would leave her coffee cup every morning.

  How had my life changed so much? How had my parents, and I, changed so much?

  I never thought I’d miss this place as much as I now realized I did. I longed for this place. For home.

  Standing here, I realized … Florida just did not feel like home.

  And I didn’t think it ever would. Some part of me wanted to stay here forever. But this place had changed. It wasn’t the house from my memories anymore. Sure, it looked the same, it had all the hallmarks … but this was a shell, with none of the life that I wanted nothing more than to get back to. And so I turned away, leaving my sadness behind me, wandering back outside feeling as though a bit of me had been cut out in my sleep, one that I couldn’t feel exactly, but which I knew was gone.

  I unlocked the garage doors from the keypad outside—the code was the same—and Lockwood pulled the boat-sized Mercedes into the garage. I closed the door, shutting out the sunlight so Mill and Iona could clamber out without being burned to a crisp.

  I went back around to the front of the house to meet them inside when I heard someone call my name from the driveway—someone whose voice I had not heard in a very long time.

  Wheeling around, I saw a slender, tan Native American girl with dark hair tied in two braids. She had a pretty face with dark eyes. Not a trace of makeup, but it wasn’t as if she needed it.

  “Genesee!”

  The girl grinned at me, her teeth brilliantly white. “Haven’t heard that name in a long time, from you or anyone else.”

  I nearly jumped off the porch and raced across the driveway to her, throwing my arms around her neck.

  “Whoa!” Genesee said, startled by my extreme show of affection. “It’s good to see you too, Cassie.”

  “I am so sorry that I haven’t called,” I said, pulling away from her, hoping she could see the truth on my face. No lie.

  Genesee dismissed my words with a wave. “Don’t be. Life must be insane for you since the move.” Genesee looked past me to my house. “Saw someone pulling into your driveway. I didn’t recognize the car. Figured it was either new tenants or burglars.”

  “Well, you’re awfully brave, coming up here alone to confront burglars,” I said.

  She shrugged. The reaction was so familiar it made my heart hurt. “That never used to be a problem. But lately …” She trailed off, her pretty face tightening. “Crime has been crazy. Some people have died.” She shook her head.

  “I heard that there have been some weird people in town,” I tested, watching her face.

  “Exchange students from one of the SUNY schools is my guess,” she said. “I don’t know, though. It’s just been weird the last few weeks. The whole town is uneasy.”

  She looked at something past me, and I turned to follow her gaze.

  Lockwood was passing by the foyer, which could be seen through the open front door, hauling some suitcases into the living room.

  I turned back to Genesee, one of her eyebrows arched. “So, what are you doing back here?” she asked. “And who is that?”

  “He’s a sort of family friend,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie, but I still hated saying it. Gen was one of the last people I wanted to lie to. Our friendship was one of the few in my life that hadn’t been torpedoed by my lying. “He helped to get me up here to see my uncle.”

  “Your uncle? What happened?”

  “He was attacked the night before last,” I said. “Mom’s sister—you know Aunt Becky—thinks it’s connected with the other stuff going on here.”

  Gen’s eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s stable,” I said. “But I had to see him. He’s one of the few people that didn’t … after … we’re really close. I had to come see him.”

  “Your parents didn’t come with you?”

  “No,” I said, unable to meet her eye. “Not this time.”

  “Bummer,” she said. “I know my mom would have loved to see them.”

  “They would have loved to see you, too,” I said. That much was the truth.

  “Well, I should let you get settled,” Gen said. “When are you going to see your uncle?”

  “As soon as everyone inside has had a chance to rest. Long drive, you know.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled effortlessly at me. “Come and let me know how he’s doing, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She waved, and I watched her go, and a strange feeling came over me. Something connected to the one I’d felt in the house minutes ago—that this was not home anymore, but that neither was Florida. Seeing Gen just drove that strange sense of isolation, made it plainer. I walked back inside the house that was no longer my home, in this town where I no longer lived. And nothing about it felt remotely right.

  Chapter 14

  It was very odd to see Iona and Mill, aspects of my new, Florida life, walking through my childhood home. Pale as they were, they almost looked like ghosts, lonely and wandering as if they were trapped.

  Well, they sort of were trapped until the sun went down.

  I had pulled every drape closed, but the house was not nearly as fortified for blocking the light out as Mill’s place was. Iona was particularly unhappy—possibly because I had relegated her to the basement until tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “What would you like me to do?”

  Her jaw snapped shut and she stalked off.

  It was a fully furnished place, where my dad had once kept a pool table as well as a series of arcade games. A makeshift bar top stood in one corner. I remembered the tiny dancing Santa that Mom would put there every Christmas.

  Dad had taken the large flat screen television that he had kept down here for movie nights. He had tried hard for years to make it feel like a movie theater.

  “It’s the best place for you,” I said.

  Iona paced, steam practically rising off her shoulders. “First a trunk, now a basement. What am I, some sort vampire stereotype? Got a coffin for me to sleep in?”

  “Get used to it,” Mill said. “This probably is where we’ll be sleeping.”

  “Great,” Iona said. “Just what I wanted. A slumber party with all my best friends.”

  The sun would dip below the horizon a little before eight that evening. Seeing Uncle Mike, in addition to being the nice thing for a niece to do, and assuaging my guilty conscience, was also the best—and only—place to get accurate information. If we could locate where he had been attacked, and how, it might help lead us to the vampires. And their lair.

  “I just hope he isn’t totally out of it, or we might have to fall back on Plan B,” I said.

  “Which is … what exactly?” Iona asked.

  “Probably setting a trap of some sort,” I said.

  With the vamps settled (as settled as they could be, anyway—Iona was still breathing fire), I offered Lockwood the guest room, against his protestations of sleeping on the couch. I found air mattresses in the linen closet for Iona and Mill.

  And then, my breath catching in my throat, I made my way back to my old bedroom.

  The room was a lot bigger than my new room in Florida. It was also a lot less cluttered than it ever used to be. The closet was totally empty, as was the dresser and the desk beneath the window. Mom had bought all of the furniture for this room at a garage sale, but it still felt like my room, even if everything in it was totally different—wasn’t mine.

  I sank down onto the bed, the mattress a little too firm for my liking.

  Pulling my bag open for the first time since my little confrontation with Mill, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had the measure of me better than I expected. He’d packed a variety of warm clothes. The jeans he’d picked were my favorites. A couple of sweatshirts. And…

  The T-shirt that he had lent me.

  My cheeks burned.

  “Damn you, Mill.” He hadn’t emptied a laundry basket.

  Still … he’d done well.

  Out the window, I could see the single street light that followed along the road through the trees, like a bright star in the night. How many nights had I stared at that solitary light, thinking about Gary Haze or the test I hadn’t studied for?

  Life had been so easy here.

  I fought the urge to cry. I didn’t understand these feelings—didn’t want to, almost; just wanted to banish them away, and get on with this whole vampire thing.

  “Hey, Cassie.”

  The voice roused me from a sleep I hadn’t realized I’d slipped into.

  It was dark. Mill stood in the doorway. He had changed into a black leather jacket, navy blue shirt, and dark jeans.

  The look suited him. I had to force myself to look away so I didn’t stare.

  “Hi,” I said. “Is the sun down?”

  Mill nodded. “You ready to go? I don’t imagine the hospital will take visitors for much longer.”

  “I can be,” I said, the spike of adrenaline at the thought of talking to Uncle Mike banishing my fatigue. “Just let me change.” I rose, going for my bag, still open at the edge of the bed. “I’ll meet you guys at the car.”

  We were on the road again in less than five minutes.

  Familiarity washed over me again—but it was a discombobulating sort. Things weren’t quite right, somehow. The evening was as quiet as it had always been, the few cars on the road driving slowly, as though afraid a child might lurch out in front of them. The single chain coffee shop in the area was usually flooded with people, but although there was a line of vehicles around the building now, no one was actually inside.

  So why, if things were more or less as I remembered them, did it seem … wonky, somehow?

  “Everything seems so … dead,” Iona remarked as we slowly passed by a small shop whose front windows had been smashed in. Caution tape crossed over the broken bits in a large, yellow X. “I mean, I’ve been through small town America, and it’s not like it used to be, but this …” She stared out the window, pale hair catching stray rays from every street lamp we passed. “This is dead.”

  I tried to swallow the lump that had appeared in my throat.

  The hospital was nestled up on the hill just outside of town, not far from the high school. The parking lot was dimly lit, something which I hadn’t remembered. All of the bright and fancy lights at Dad’s new hospital in Tampa had made me realize just how small and insignificant this hospital was.

  How did Dad work here for so long?

  I stepped out into the cool night. Mill and Iona followed.

  Iona flicked her silvery blonde hair over her shoulder and glared up at the building. “This place is a hospital?”

  “Yeah. Only one for thirty miles,” I said. “It sees a lot of traffic.”

  “Probably more lately,” Mill said.

  “I will be here when you need me,” Lockwood said, then rolled the window up and drove off to find a parking spot.

  “Shall we?” Mill said, gesturing toward the doors.

  We took one step before I found myself standing behind Mill instead of in front of him, my hair whipping around my face as if a car had just sped by me.

  It took me a second to get my bearings. Somehow, in the span of a fraction of a second, Mill had moved from behind me to in front of me.

  “Wha …” I started, but I fell silent as I heard the snarl of an unfamiliar voice in the night.

  “Well, well. Lookee what we found. Vampires.”

  Vampires?

  Three people stood in the shadows between us and the front doors. The dim lights made it hard to make out their faces. Their shapes were apparent though: two males and a female. The first, the one who had spoken, was built like a pro-wrestler—thick muscles with shoulders that looked like small boulders. The other male was slender and scrawny-looking. The woman had wildly curly hair, and was tall and wide-hipped.

  “This your territory?” Mill asked.

  “Not exactly,” the other vampire said. “Here on orders.”

  “Doing what?” Mill asked.

  “What’s it to you?” the female said.

  “Finishing off someone who shouldn’t have lived,” the first said, ignoring the woman.

  My heart sank to my feet.

  Uncle Mike.

  I latched onto the back of Mill’s jacket, tugging.

  He must have taken the hint.

  “What? You get fledgling regret?” Mill asked. “Decide you didn’t like her as much in the cold dark of the next midnight as you did the night before?”

  Iona whipped her head around to show him a glare. “You’re a jackass.”

  Mill’s frowned. “I—we’re not talking about me, okay? It happens with other vampires … I didn’t …”

  I looked between the two of them, hopelessly caught in the middle of a discussion I didn’t fully understand, but got the edges of. “Uhm …?” I asked, pointing at the vamps in front of us.

  The lead vampire across from us sank into a fighting position. “You’re nosy. What business is this of yours?”

  “We’ve been hearing that a lot of humans have been found drained around here,” Mill said. “It’s not exactly good for business.”

  Mr. Boulder Shoulders let out a little hiss. “To hell with your business. You have no idea what you’re dealing with!”

  And before he spoke another word, he threw himself across the distance between him and Mill.

 

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